I believe it is a fallacy of reification to say that a “dishonest argument” makes the person who uses it dishonest themselves. Any conservative creationist who at all engages the scientific community is going to get the label “liar” in 2.1 seconds if we allow so narrow an understanding of human psychology. You’d have to call virtually ALL of them liars and I just don’t think that’s reasonable as though there’s no evidence they actually believe in what they are saying. People back themselves into many twisted justifications to defend beliefs they honestly hold and they don’t realize they are doing it no matter how bizarrely far it may go. I’m sure there are some genuine creationist liars out there, but probably no more or less than their evolutionist counter parts on average. Perhaps those ratios are not equal (I have no idea), but the bottom line is we don’t call people liars unless we can prove it. And them just using arguments we don’t approve of, or lame tactics is not good enough proof to demonstrate that conclusion. We can point out their errors easily if their arguments are so dubious while avoiding the ugly politics of the “liar, liar” game. It is lazy thinking on our part to so quickly compartmentalize people who disagree with us in this fashion and it makes us look bad when most creationists are going to know full well that they actually believe in what they are saying.

Ben

In fact, the Methodists recently passed a resolution that goes as far as calling ID intellectually dishonest and specifically recommends *NOT* teaching it in any high school curriculum.

There is no scientific debate on the basic notions of the modern theory of evolution. It is so evident to thinking people that the mainstream denominations that represent some 80% of Christians worldwide have social statements embracing science and particularly citing the Theory of Evolution as being the best explanation for the diversity of life on the planet.

I know that Christian denominations are not the authoritative sources for scientific conclusions, but even these denominations are unwilling to ‘lie for Jesus’. For example, the Episcopalians:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/19021_58398_ENG_HTM.htm

The Presbyterians, UCC, United Methodists, ELCA Lutherans, and the Roman Catholic Church are all highly critical of claims put forth by Creationists and ID Proponents such as Jonathan Wells (who is a lawyer by the way). In fact, the Methodists recently passed a resolution that goes as far as calling ID intellectually dishonest and specifically recommends teaching it in any high school curriculum.

If The Case For Creation is anything like Strobel’s other attempts at ‘journalism’, then he needs to be called out as a complete charlatan. With that book, Strobel is practicing a more measured, but no less dishonest version of Ann Coulter journalism.

You’d have to establish the nature of the before and supposed after research. His interviews are designed to “capture” his impressions of the moment to eek out innocent credibility. Maybe he looked up Vardman’s case on it afterwards and decided it was credible. So he’d be relying on McVay and Vardman. Maybe you have a case. I don’t know.

I’d just submit a question to Strobel and get it over with.

Ben

Why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t know it’s false.

I do think some Christians who have access to him should tell him; in fact, given the big deal that you and others are making about it, I think that’s fairly important.

But I don’t know who does.

Do you?

A confession. If it gets me booted out of the “Skeptics Club”—so be it. I have only skimmed Misquoting Jesus while standing in a Library, looking for a certain quote. I read Metzger and Wallace regarding Textual Criticism, and I haven’t seen any convincing reason why Ehrman adds anything more I would need to know.

So I don’t know what the “Top Ten Verses” are—nor do I know the claim being made by Ehrman. (Beyond, of course, the general agreement by most Textual Critics that the ending of Mark, the Pericope de Adultera and the Johannine Comma were later additions. As well as each Textual Critic’s pet phrase or two in certain verses.)

I take from the quote (assuming it is accurate) that this list of verses appeared in manuscripts whereas earlier manuscripts did NOT have these verses? Are you saying the verses were in earlier manuscripts?

And I hazily recall, the issue regarding the “commentaries” was whether Ehrman said “Greek Commentaries” or just “commentaries.” If I recall, it was a quote from Metzger, where even Metzger got it wrong. Again, though, this is hazy memory from a long-ago discussion on this problem. So I may have it quite wrong.

1. Strobel did NOT trust McVay.

Ben, you said, “Apparently Strobel thinks asking McRay is sufficient research and that the objections presented to him to look further into probably weren’t worth looking into” and Nathaniel, you indicated, “He got something wrong because he trusted McRay on a detail.”

But this is Exactly the OPPOSITE of what Strobel writes!

It is why I quoted Strobel himself to get it accurate as possible. Strobel says he went into the interview with McVay, having performed some research. He refers to his “notes.” And “long-standing challenges.” And “difficulties archeology would have trouble explaining.”

After McVay spews out the bit about the coins, Strobel specifically says he doubts McVay! I am absolutely baffled as to how you two—Ben and Nathaniel—can say Strobel was relying upon McVay, when Stroble himself said he did not! I will repeat Strobel’s statement immediately after hearing about the coins.

“That sounded a bit speculative to me, but rather than bog down the conversation, I decided to mentally file this issue away for further analysis later.”

Where do you get from that statement Strobel was relying upon McVay? And what is the very next thing Strobel says?

“When I did some additional research…”

I puzzle as to how this could be any clearer.

1. Strobel goes in with notes, and anticipated difficulties.
2. McVay claims Quirinius was governor twice due to Vardaman’s coins.
3. Strobel says he found this speculative and wants to do further analysis.
4. Strobel says he does additional research.

How one could possibly say this demonstrates Strobel was relying on McVay, or even more precisely that Strobel was relying solely on McVay is beyond me.

2. This is edited material.

Strobel is not quoting an interview verbatim. This is a book, written after the fact. Can anyone honestly presume every single thing that every single person every interview by Strobel was 100% correct? Of course not. (In fact, in the Case for Creator, some even disagree amongst themselves, if I recall.) If Strobel found one of his experts said something that wasn’t true—would he have included in the book?

Really?

“I found this to be very speculative,” says Strobel, “so I followed up with additional research later. Turns out to be total poppycock. My expert was wrong, and turns out the skeptics were right.”

Please…I am chuckling even imagining this in a book! If Strobel did any research that proved his expert wrong, he wouldn’t included it in the book.

I stand by the same premise. Either he did NOT do the research—in which case he is misrepresenting his credentials as a researcher OR he DID do the research, in which case he is misrepresenting the coins. Oh, and in case you didn’t know—he is still babbling on about these coins in this video on his website. (If the link doesn’t work, go to leestrobel.com, under “Investigating Jesus” click “The Case for Christmas” and the first video link.)

Again, Strobel brags about his research skills in the video: “I looked at corroborative evidence that these documents are accurate. First I studied archeology…”

And then the coins:

“Jerry Vardaman found a coin with what archeologists call ‘micro-graphic letters’ that simply means very tiny writings that proved Quirinius was pro-counsel of Syria from 11 B.C. to after the death of Herod….But the point was that Luke was right. And that archeological discovery shows us how careful he was as a historian.”

You would think if he “studied archeology” he would have found archeologists would have laughed their butts off at “micro-graphic” Latin letters on Greek coins. Or even “micro-graphic” letters!

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, “He relied upon McVay” AND “He did his research.” One or the other. If he relied upon McVay—he is untrustworthy and a liar about the extent of research he did. If he did even the barest research possible—he is untrustworthy and a liar about the coins.